Stuti (name changed) would wake up at 5 every day to sweep, wash and dust the entire house, cook breakfast and pack lunch for the family of five and then go and drop the kids to the bus stop. But she is not the mother of these children; neither is she their caretaker.

Working at the home of a MNC executive, she was made to work at least 12-14 hours daily, given only two meals and beaten up badly if she made a ‘mistake’. When she was rescued at the instance of a neighbour who could not bear to see her regular trauma, she was found to be malnourished and scared.

But Stuti’s is not alone. Megha (name changed), 13, ran away from her employer’s house to be found by a policeman on the streets in Kalkaji. She had run away from a doctor’s…